The cost is piling up as well

Season's high snowfall total is slamming local removal budgets

Published 12:43 am, Thursday, February 10, 2011

A town snowplow clears the edges of Eastview Rd. in Latham, NY on Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2011. (Paul Buckowski / Times Union)

A town snowplow clears the edges of Eastview Rd. in Latham, NY on Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2011. (Paul Buckowski / Times Union)

Photo: Paul Buckowski

The cost is piling up as well

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How do local governments know snow has slammed the Capital Region? They look in their coffers.

To keep traffic flowing, roads must be plowed, salted and cleared day in and day out. But the harshest winter in recent years, compounded by the climate of fiscal austerity, is adding up to a bill that, in some communities, is significantly bigger than anticipated.

In Albany, the last two snowstorms pushed the city's snow removal budget of $270,000 over by about $180,000 -- and that money was intended to last the rest of the year, including the start of next winter.

Nick D'Antonio, commissioner of Albany's Department of General Services, said his agency has asked the mayor for an extra half-million dollars to ensure it can get the job done. And that money will have to come from some other department.

Sure, it snows a lot in upstate New York. But few anticipated during the budgeting process that it would snow, well, quite so much.

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"The weather we can't deal with from day to day," D'Antonio said. "How are we going to plan a year ahead of time?"

The Capital Region hasn't shivered through a winter like this one in some time. About 34 inches of snow blanketed the Albany area in January, while 13.3 inches have fallen this month so far, said Vasil Koleci, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Albany.

The overall tally for the winter season is 60.7 inches (and counting) -- a couple notches shy of the 62.5-inch seasonal average.

"We're running near our normal snowfall for the whole winter, and it's only the second week of February," Koleci said.

Last year, in comparison, saw significantly less powder: just 7 inches in January, 24.9 inches in February and 45.4 inches for the entire winter.

Some communities say their spending is on track when it comes to clearing the streets. Bethlehem, for instance, is within its snow removal budget, according to Town Supervisor Sam Messina.

Troy, by contrast, has dished out about $98,000 -- more than three-fourths -- of its $125,000 budget for overtime snow removal, said city spokesman Jeff Pirro.

And Schenectady is finding itself stretched. Three-fourths of its salt budget is gone. In past years, the Department of General Services and Neighborhood Revitalization had an extra $250,000 to $300,000 to enlist the help of private contractors, but those funds were eliminated this year.

That means the agency's workers are working 16 hours a day to clear the streets and pushing overtime costs higher than usual, said Carl Olsen, commissioner of the city's Department of General Services and Neighborhood Revitalization.

"You have no choice," he said. "You have to plow and remove snow. You have to keep streets passable. Again, we're trying to do this as efficiently as we possibly can with the resources we have available, but resources are obviously being stretched."

And they'll continue to stretch as long as a chill lingers in the air. After all, February isn't even half over.

"I think our budget will carry us through spring," Olsen said. "It's just going to be a matter of what happens in November and December."

The next item of business? Patching up potholes. That is, Olsen said, "if it ever stops snowing."